Lodi begins contaminated well closures

LODI - The first of five plumes where the city has been aggressively cleaning contaminated soil and groundwater is being closed.

Keith Reid

LODI - The first of five plumes where the city has been aggressively cleaning contaminated soil and groundwater is being closed.

The so-called Busy Bee plume, just north of Lodi Avenue near the railroad tracks, has been approved for closure after three years of work extracting chemical vapors from the soil and filtering the air, City Attorney Steve Schwabauer said.

The city agreed to pay $42,000 to fill the soil vapor extraction wells with concrete.

"All of the wells, monitoring and treatment well, need to be sealed and destroyed. They can't continue to serve as conduits for contamination," Schwabauer said.

Schwabauer said the Busy Bee closure marks a significant step in the city's lengthy and expensive quest to clear the toxic industrial cleaning chemicals perchloroethylene and trichloroethylene, also known as PCE and TCE respectively, that were dumped by businesses decades ago into the city's leaky sewer pipes, threatening the groundwater.

Lodi engaged in a long legal battle with insurers of the businesses, and eventually reclaimed $24 million to put toward the cleanup costs that were once estimated to be $50 million. Schwabauer said that cost has been reduced as the cleanup has been faster and more efficient than the city initially thought. A new cost estimate is not ready.

In 2008, the city contracted work to be done at the five plumes - Busy Bee, Central, Northern, South-central western and Southern - to start extracting the chemicals. The contractor started at the Central Plume, where work is ongoing, and started at Busy Bee in 2010. Schwabauer said the soil vapor extraction process is six months to a year away from being done in the Central Plume. The pumping and filtering of groundwater there will go on for 30 years or more.

The other three plumes are being monitored, with cleanup plans still forming, Schwabauer said.

Lodi officials said they are pleased to see some of the work being completed. What once was thought to be a long and daunting "teaspoon by teaspoon" cleanup project has gone well since the city hired a contractor to essentially vacuum the chemicals out of the soil.

"The cleanup process has been going quite well," said Council member Bob Johnson. "What we thought was going to be a great cloud over the city for a long time has been progressing beautifully. There have been no new surprises."

A smooth ride on the groundwater contamination issue is welcome after what has been a bumpy ride.

A brief history:

In 1989, Lodi discovered that chemicals were seeping into the groundwater and, in 1997, they hired private attorney Michael C. Donovan to help them recoup money from polluting businesses.

Donovan's legal strategy was to sue the insurance companies of potential polluters as the city feared state regulators would hang the bulk of the cost on the city.

As the city's funding to pay Donovan grew thin, he negotiated a $16 million Lehman Bros. loan to continue the cases.

The plan backfired after the courts ruled the city could not force insurers to pay because the city itself was also potentially responsible for the pollution. Lehman Bros. later sued for its money.

The city fired Donovan and City Attorney Randall Hays in 2004, and a year later, the city and Donovan sued each other - Donovan for his legal fees, the city accusing Donovan of malpractice and fraud. The city settled with Donovan, paying the attorney $1.2 million instead of going forward with a $2.5 million trial cost.

Paying Donovan ended the legal tussle, and the city moved on to the cleanup phase.